Glass Towers and Steel Bars
by Diamroyal
Summary: When all's said and done...Winner Enterprises Inc. won't just take care of itself... In Disdain of Mortals arc part 3 of 6.
1. Chapter One

Mucho, mucho thanks to Miyabi and Crazy, because, one, this story's been on the shelf, and hence, poked at for months, and two, for being /nice/ about telling me I screwed something up, be it major story transitions, or am over using commas/italics...which I do. hee.

Glass Towers and Steel Bars Ch. I

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If I had to live my life over...I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.  
_Nadine Stair_

I have often depended on the blindness of strangers.  
_Adrienne E. Gusoff_

Don't say yes until I've finished talking.  
_Darryl F. Zanuck_

Paul waited just inside the revolving doors marking the edge between the lobby and the outside world, each turn of the door letting a little gust of hot air into the cooled interior. He was holding the folder that was everything the company had on his new boss, and it wasn't much, for all that the man's entire family seemed to be entrenched throughout the company. _How can they possibly have so little information if he has over twenty sisters who have husbands working for him?_ The sheer inefficiency of it made him cringe. Perhaps because there were so many different people with different opinions, it caused the information blockage. They couldn't even tell him how old he was. Paul had gotten ages ranging from twelve, which he dearly hoped wasn't true, to thirty, which wasn't possible, since, supposedly, he was the youngest, and the youngest daughter wasn't that old.

The bottom line was, he knew as well then that it was a stressful situation he'd pulled himself into. Well, been invited into.

Right, then, in the lobby, he wasn't sure if he really _should _have ignored the phone, just assumed what he really had thought, and decided to watch his old series marathon. He'd _wanted_ to ignore it, knowing that his mother was still ranting on about how Sarah hadn't invited her when her last baby was born, and how Jer was still refusing to talk to her about it, and that his father was still being obtuse. It went on and on. But he'd also known that if he didn't answer it the first time, not only would she fill up the entire message space on his voice mail, she'd keep calling until he _did_ pick up. So, heaving a sigh of discontent, he'd hit the receiver for both voice and visual, and knew immediately that it wasn't his mother, because the screen stayed black, unrevealing of whomever might be on the other side.

"Hello?" His voice had automatically come out in his work voice, pleasant, light and very carefully measured out into the right amount of courtesy, with a questioning lilt at the end of it. The blank screen had put him on guard, and his professional persona, though useful, sometimes brought him nearly to the edge all on its own.

There was a distinct pause before any return came over the line. "Is this Paul Richardson?" Since he didn't have any visual, Paul concentrated on the voice. It was a tenor, the tone even.

"This is he. How may I help you?" More professionalism. It made him want to gag.

"Well, I was wondering if you'd be interested in a job."

"I'm sorry, but I've already found a position."

"That's okay." There goes what little formalism was there. "The offer is quite generous. You might be interested in looking at it, at the very least."

_How was that okay? And it would have to be pretty generous to top what I've got already._ Right then, Paul was the office manager of a large construction company, overseeing more than ten secretaries and clerks. He was well paid, and very capable of the work. But still…it surely wouldn't hurt to just listen to the offer, would it?

The man on the line waited through the long hesitation, staying absolutely silent. "What exactly is the offer, uh...excuse me, I don't believe I caught your name—or who the offer was from."

There was a light laugh. "I didn't tell it to you, Mr. Richardson. But I represent Mr. Winner, of Winner Enterprises, Incorporated. Here's the offer: in a few weeks, the new CEO and chairman of the board is going to be taking over, after a vacancy in the seat of nearly two years. Mr. Winner needs a personal assistant, one who has no previous ties to the company, and therefore no other loyalties within its corporate structure. You have been put forth for consideration."

Well, that was stunning. Paul groped backwards for the chair that sat by the phone. "Excuse me?"

If there'd been a visual connection, the man on the line would have been wearing a frown, to match his voice. "You are under consideration for a new opening. As a personal assistant to Mr. Winner, who will be taking over his father's position in a few weeks." There was a note of difference, as if whoever was doing this call were questioning Paul's intelligence, and, subsequently, his suitability. Paul definitely wanted to hear more—even if he was sure that he was certainly not suitable for the job.

"I apologize. I understood the first time, it's just that…" he trailed off, then picked the right words. "Well, it seems reasonable that Mr. Winner would want someone with a lot more experience."

Another little laugh. "No, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Winner thinks that your resume has demonstrated enough experience, and that your qualifications are quite sufficient for what the job requires." As another silence stretched out, the voice came back. "Is there anything in particular that makes you reluctant to take this position, other than your current employment?"

"Actually, there is a large question. Though Mr. Winner..." and who is he? The famous, but never seen, heir to the Winner family? Surely it must be. "...may be very sure that I could handle the job, I can't be sure. I would rather not take the—rather large—chance that my abilities will be insufficient."

"Ah, I see." Yet another break as the line went silent. "I'm not sure what assurance I can offer you, but please, believe me when I say that Mr. Winner would be willing, should that circumstance arise, to place you in another position within the company, comparable to the position you currently hold at CCI."

"Can I get that in writing?" That brought a laugh, the tenor going slightly higher in its mirth.

"You're not very trusting, are you, Mr. Richardson?"

There was a pause as Paul tried to think of a delicate way to cover over his slight gaff. "I've found that unless you get it in writing, large corporations have a tendency to take advantage of any opening given to them."

"And you wonder if you have the best qualifications for the job." There was amusement and a touch of sarcasm to the voice. Paul didn't quite get it, but let the matter drop. "Yes, anything about this offer you require to be made out in writing will be done so, to your satisfaction."

Well, that was basically the last thing. There was no real reason to prefer CCI to WEI. Paul was sure that WEI stood a better chance of not going under, and the bennies would probably be at a higher standard. The pay would be higher, that didn't even need to be stated aloud. So that wasn't an issue. Relocation was also obvious without needing to be voiced.

"All right. I _am_ interested enough in this offer to accept an invitation for an interview."

A laugh from the darkened screen. "That was it, Mr. Richardson. If you want the job, it's yours."

This whole thing was nearly ridiculous. Who did things like that? There was a very carefully followed procedure to the job market, an orchestrated dance that was either long, drawn out and ridiculous, or beyond that. He remembered having to go through a three hour interview for a job that was low-level management in a shopping mall.

"Well, then, if that's the case, perhaps a trial period would be a good idea?"

"Okay. How does one month sound? If, at the end of one month, you feel compelled to tender your regrets, you can leave or have yourself transferred to any other position that fits your qualifications. I can assure you that there are always openings. Should you feel capable of the duties entailed, at the end of one month you'll accept the job on a permanent basis."

He still had reservations, but those appeared to be terms he could agree with, so he gave a nod, not having forgotten that although his interviewer might be invisible to him, _he_ still had the visuals on.

"Good." The voice was almost as good as the visual, he was thinking, because there was a definite note of satisfaction wormed in there. "Your first duty is to find out whatever you can about Quatre Winner from any of the employees or stock holders at the headquarters." A laugh. "After you've made all the arrangements you need to make for yourself. _After_ that, and once you feel that you have gathered all you can, if you would put a call into this number," and it appeared on the screen," and leave a message to that effect? The next business day, Mr. Winner will come down to meet you, with the information you'll gather, and both of you will go on from there. Is that acceptable?" There were raised eyebrows in the last question, clearly visible in Paul's mind as he stared at the once again blank screen.

"Yes. I take it that I will meet Mr. Winner then?"

"Yes. That should be soon enough." Here, the voice sounded a little pensive, but with it still carried the edge of assurance it had throughout the call. "I'll have the appropriate clearances and the correct identification made up and sent to you immediately. Should you encounter any problems, call that number, and ask to speak to Rashid. He'll inform Mr. Winner and the difficulties will be taken care of."

He was very precise in his instructions. There was nothing Paul had to think of but the arrangements he was now, rather suddenly, in need of. "Okay. Well then, I have a lot of things to do suddenly, so if you would excuse me, I'll go on to those."

"That's great. Thank you—may I call you Paul?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I think it'll be best if we're on a first name basis. I'll be seeing you, Paul." And the line went dead, leaving Paul to go over the last sentences several times until he was glad he was already sitting. That had been his new employer—Mr. Winner. Well.

* * *

Things had snowballed since then, until Paul reached where he now was, waiting just inside the glass walls of the lobby at WEI's corporate headquarters, where the very air smelled of wealth, of expensive perfumes and raw silk suits. _I'm going to need a new wardrobe if I keep this job._ His stray thought, although filled with amusement, did almost nothing to still his nerves, inflamed over all the very wealthy, very self-assured people he'd had to interrogate.

So far none of it had proved very difficult at all, but then, the job hadn't really even begun.

He was musing over the future, wondering what might be in store for him, besides the rather odd assignment he'd already been given, and missed the two young men who entered through the revolving door, both of them silent but filled with confidence, not daunted by the size or power that surrounded them in the lobby. One even had a large smile on his face.

"Paul?" It brought his head into focus at the youths in front of him, more on the blond one that stood slightly before the other, who had brown hair. The blond stuck a hand out. "I'm Quatre." Paul automatically reached out to shake the extended hand, noticing that the grip was sure, with calluses Paul wouldn't have expected on someone with as much wealth as this young man. The blue-green eyes smiled as much as the lips. They began to sparkle as they dropped down to the folder still held in Paul's left hand. "Shall we find an office and go over that?" He'd already started looking around the lobby, his eyes scanning the people's faces around him, but turned back on an afterthought. "Among other things."

Paul gave a short nod. "Certainly. I actually have an office set up for temporary purposes."

The smile broadened. "Excellent. Then shall we?" Quatre tilted his head towards the elevators.

Paul gave a nod, and led the way. They were lucky that the elevators were fast; it saved them the true wait of going up twenty floors—only about a third of the way up the building. They stepped out of the metal box, and made their way to the empty office Paul had chanced across the first day he'd entered the building. After the door was closed behind the three men, Quatre turned to Paul, waving at the other young man with him. "I didn't introduce you. This is Duo Maxwell." The brown-haired, and braided, youth turned from where he'd been walking along the walls, and nodded to him. Quatre watched as he went all the way around, turning to Paul only after Duo gave him a nod as he came to stand beside him. He gave a bright smile to his PA. "So, what's in that file?"

Paul crossed to the table, motioning to the several chairs. "If you'll have a seat, Mr. Winner."

He did sit, but raised a hand to ward off Paul's words. "Please, please, please do not call me that. I keep expecting my father to be there."

Duo gave a snort of laughter as he too sat down. "It's better than Master Quatre." Quatre grimaced, but chose to ignore him, instead reaching for the now opened folder. He very quickly scanned it with Duo looking over his shoulder, the castors on the bottom of the office chair allowing both of them to get close enough together to not strain their necks. Occasionally, they'd both laugh. Paul could understand the sentiment, but he still felt some disgust over how little there really was to that folder.

It didn't take them long to go through the small folder, and when they were done, Quatre closed it and threw it down on the table top. "Well, that's interesting." He shot a look at Paul while Duo just sat back, arms crossed over his chest. "It looks like we need to have more family get-togethers, if none of my brother-in-laws know more than that." He nodded at the file. "Thank you for gathering that. It would have been difficult to do so otherwise, and it will make a good reference in the future."

He let out a long sigh. "Now on to real business." He shot Paul a steely look. "Those same people are not going to be happy with the changes I am preparing to make. For the past few weeks I've been going over the general accounts and other run-of-the-mill things, familiarizing myself with the different aspects of this corporation, as well as the underlying structures." He shook his head, his eyes moving as if seeing something else and not the expanse of table he was now focused on. "There are many things I'm going to ferret out—that have happened in the past two years—that neither I nor my father would approve of."

He paused, and his hands, folded on the table, showed white knuckles. "Unfortunately at the time my father died, it was impossible for me to assume the role I must now take." It got another snort from Duo where he was—"sprawled" was the word that came to Paul's mind—in his chair.

"Yeah, you were otherwise indisposed, Q. That's the blatant truth." Quatre shot him a look, as if what he'd said could have been attached to another statement. But the look was only a second, before the newly made businessman turned back to Paul.

"One important thing that I'm afraid I have less time to overcome than I could wish: although I might understand the business, I still have a rather large gap of knowledge involving procedure and such things—times and places where going through the 'correct' channels would be more time consuming with less results then using 'accepted' methods, though they may be rather less than totally official." As Paul began to interject that _he_ didn't know things like that, since he too was completely new to the company, Quatre's raised hand, flattened and palm out, forestalled any protest. "I understand that you would no more know that at this juncture in time, but _you_," a finger pointing, "will be in a _much_ better position to find those things out than I," here a finger pointed at his own chest, "at _any_ time."

Paul understood that, so all he felt he needed to do was nod—which he did.

"Next on the agenda—_both_ of us need to learn the forms of the company. I have no idea how people come up with this much paperwork, but unfortunately, being in our positions, we need to know as much of it as we possibly can." He gave Paul a wry look, the sarcasm darkening his eyes until they looked nearly black. "I'd rather not have a quibble with someone, and not have the 'correct' paperwork to back me up, because we're going to have enough on our plates in that arena." He frowned off into space over Paul's shoulder, apparently having another thought. "In fact, I'm going to call in one of my lawyers, to give us an idea of what paperwork is absolutely necessary, from a legal point of view, so we can at least cover our...selves, should anything untoward end up happening."

That was rather good news, because the deeper they went into even this first meeting, the more Paul was beginning to think that this changeover was going to end up being something that was going to shock the hell out of the company. Not necessarily a bad thing, because, after all, a changing of management always _did_ carry new agendas, though, of course, the bottom line was still the same.

Blue eyes, now piercing, shot to look at him. "Did you get all of that down? Yes? Good."

While Paul made more notes on his pad, working on a way to get to _do_ the things they had to do. Quatre seemed to be half waiting for him, and half planning things of his own, though no paper made itself evident. And while each was engaged in their own worlds of paper trails and corporate enterprising, Duo Maxwell was looking around the room, and, when the silence became too thick, apparently, he had no qualms about breaking it with a whistled tune. Paul just glanced at him, trying to place him once more with his own knowledge of the ladder, and then dismissed it as being unimportant at right that second. Quatre ignored it completely, though he was the one to bring more work into the room, and breaking the silence with it.

"Okay. To start off, we need to get this room some computers. Duo," and he turned to look beside him, "we need some pretty powerful stuff, and it needs to be appropriate. See what you can supply us with, from the normal supply routes within the company, and get us something to work with." The braided head nodded, and he sprang to his feet, sticking out a hand to Paul.

"It was nice meeting you, Paul. Looking forward to working with you."

Paul shook his hand, but stuck his neck out, just a little. "What exactly _are_ you going to be doing?"

The boy grinned. "I'm your gofer."

Quatre, from where he was seated, snorted. "And security. He's going to be consulting with us, and WEI security for a little while, probably about three weeks, giving us a secure area to work, and checking general building security, because I just don't have the time, and neither do you."

Paul nodded, even if he seemed a bit young for it. Who knows, with the Winners' probably amazing connections. "Okay."

Duo grinned at him one last time before heading out to find some computers, leaving them to start planning exactly how they were going to do their paper trail investigations.

* * *

At the end of the second day they'd been working together, they had a complete computer set up, covering one entire wall of the room. The systems were password protected within an inch of their digital lives, but they had a rather astonishing ability to cut through any security in the company, from the executive level of the shareholders' computers, down to the individual offices out in the field. They could search through all of it, if it had _any_ access to the networking of the corporate computers. Paul wasn't sure how they'd done it, but he knew that it had been mostly Duo, while Quatre leaned over his shoulder and told him what he needed, late into the night yesterday. They'd both been as "perky" as the first time he'd met them, but he could _almost_ see signs of fatigue in their faces, just the barest trace, perhaps around their eyes. He mentioned it to them, and they both laughed, Duo coming back with an answer of, "Oh, it's just been too long since we've _really_ had to work," and they'd gone on.

First thing that morning had been finding enough secretaries and clerks to cover the amount of paperwork they were going to be generating within the next few days. They'd run through the different reports they could order up from accounting, payroll and even straight from the different districts, and realized that they had no hope of overcoming the mountain by themselves. And since, for all intents and purposes, they were doing an audit of the entire company, they couldn't rely upon anyone already within the company—somewhat the same situation that Quatre'd had with Paul's employment. They couldn't have loyalty issues, but they had to be competent. It was going to require finesse, and massive recruitment, to come up with enough highly skilled, or even intelligent people, to cover it within the time limit they really had.

What they _didn't_ know was how many it was feasibly going to take, to do a fine comb through the company's paper pile. They _wanted_ to go ahead and assume not too many, say, maybe, ten, all told, but how could they really be sure...they hadn't even started pulling the paperwork. And they wanted people to hand it off to immediately, so they didn't _really_ get buried.

"The good news is that I've already done a 'tour' of everything." He grinned at Paul. "You'd find that it's only _this_ building that doesn't know me by sight. I've been around the ground offices for years, I was just never allowed around here, until after my father died. In fact, during the war, for a short time, I even did some damage control from a branch office on L2." Another grin. "So all I have to really do is get things under control here, and then I can 'relax', and take a tour of operations on all levels, from here to the sites themselves.

"But that's enough of that...right now is a prime time to start planning for expansion." Quatre's blue eyes glittered with ambition in the sharp overhead lighting. "We have many things that we could acquire, and use to our advantage." He smiled, somewhat ruefully. "Not to anyone's _detriment_, but merely to our own gain." Now his eyes were full of all the altruistic things one could associate with the blond young man. His voice was both hard and contained that near-longing for good, showing his true tendencies. "There's no reason why both ideals can't be accomplished. It's merely more difficult to see the best way to that outcome."

He was speaking again with that edge of experience, as if he were teaching Paul all the secrets of his trade, if only Paul could follow along. He did it often, all the while looking at Paul eagerly, his eyes shining like the greatest obsessed fanatic—or a most beloved leader.

The blond waved a hand around, indicating, perhaps, all the paperwork spread over the desk. "For instance, this, right here, and the audits we're going to be doing." He shrugged. "I already know that there's too much time being wasted on paperwork. To do even the most simple of things, there's too much paperwork to fill out, and it makes it difficult to get everything flowing smoothly."

They both let it rest there for the moment, and went back to the various papers they were trying to sort through. They'd given up on any type of sorting method than just putting it into a pile by department, because they had no coherent pattern yet. They figured that when they had more paperwork come in, they'd be more able to distinguish the _true_ importance of each piece of colored paper. Or see if they could streamline them a bit.

Duo's interruption was both hated and wished for as they waded through the leftover paperwork, trying to decide where to put things that lacked labels or identification.

"Here's hoping you like chicken, 'cause that's all I got." He put a fast food bag down in front of them all, right next to a tray of drinks, slowly emptying his hands.

Paul stretched away from the table, yawning. "Chicken's fine, thanks."

"Yes, thank you, Duo." But Quatre would have continued working if not for Duo still being there, and almost _taking_ the papers Quatre was leaning over. "Hey!"

"Come on, man, you have to eat." He sounded like a distressed roommate, his voice that implacable mix of laughter and concern.

The businessman appeared a little frazzled while he looked up at Duo. "I will. I just...need to get more done, that's all. I'll eat."

His friend just smiled at him. "How 'bout while it's still warm?" They held a staring contest, and when Duo won, Paul thought that perhaps Quatre wasn't excessively happy with him. But the second Quatre took one bite out of his sandwich, the food began to just disappear, as if he were a starving man. And considering how Paul himself felt—he just might be.

Duo laughed. "You know as well as I do that mental work takes more outta'ya than physical, so don't pretend otherwise." He sat down to eat his own lunch/dinner, and grinned at Paul. "Don't let him slide it past you, either. If you have to, send out for food, and make sure he eats it." A fry from Quatre's meal hit him in the side of the head.

"I'm not a baby, thank you. I _do_ know how to take care of myself." He made a face.

Their camaraderie made Paul feel left out of the joke, and slightly uncomfortable, but he knew that really, it was better for him to feel left out, and not do anything about it, than to attempt a social, and professional gaff, and join in. So instead, he took the workaholic's way out, and continued to work through his lunch, listening with half a mind to their conversation, but not making any move to join in. The fine line of a personal assistant, perhaps. Or just loneliness in general.


	2. Chapter Two

As always, super thanks to Miyabi and Crazy for the beta, _AND_ for all their help with the planning part of it.

Glass Towers and Steel Bars Ch. II

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When you hold the keys to ruin,  
Of everything I see;  
With every prison blown to dust,  
My enemy walks free;  
All my kingdoms turn to sand,  
And fall into the sea.  
_Sting, Mad About You_

Two weeks, already. A total of five that he'd actually been working for WEI, but two weeks was the amount of time he'd been working for Quatre, had known him, and dealt with him as someone to take direction from, and be around for nearly twelve hours a day as they scrambled, attempting to get through the process of settling them both into their new jobs. At least he'd had those three previous weeks to let the people around him get accustomed to answering his questions, because when _he_ blew through departments, if he got impatient, he wouldn't just sit still and let them make him more so. He'd say some platitude, and blow right out, only to go back to that office on the twentieth floor, which was now adorned with his "promised" set of computer terminals, with wires going everywhere, and looking more like some mad scientist's setup than a corporate officer's workroom. From there, he'd trace through the system until he found that department's computer files, and he'd go through them that way.

It was remarkable how many times they _both_ ended up in front of those computers, attempting to find the answers that the people, who were supposedly _his_ employees, didn't want to give. Two weeks he'd been forcing his presence on the entire building, but they were no closer now to really seeing him—just as he was no closer to really occupying the penthouse, still filled with the offices of his sister's husbands—than he'd been when he and Duo had first stepped through those glass revolving doors.

It was about eight o'clock on that second Friday when Paul was finally packing things up. Thirteen hours, that's the amount of time he'd spent in that building, mostly in that one room, with Quatre, occasionally stepping forth from it, only to make his way back there not twenty minutes after leaving. He was cleaning up the paperwork that was beginning to cover the table, so tired he was in that place where cleaning seems such a brilliant idea.

Quatre was still on the left-hand terminal, his head propped up on one elbow, a little hunched forward. He looked much younger than you'd think he could, with the absolute confidence he gave out all the time. Now, he just looked like a young, untried kid in high school, staying up too late to finish homework, or tired from a long week. And it _was_ too late, right now. This was the time that felt like three in the morning, when it was almost a physical impossibility to keep your eyes open, they felt a thousand pounds, each of them. Too much work, and more to go before they could settle it all into anything even close to resembling a "normal" workday.

Both of them looked up when the lock snicked back without a knock. The only other person who knew the code was Duo, who'd actually been the one to have the door installed, under Quatre's support of him being a security consultant. He'd installed the lock himself, and Paul didn't think that it was something you could buy right off a shelf, or even special order from a security company, because he'd seen the box it'd arrived in, hand delivered to Duo by special courier.

The box had been a non-descript brown, with no labels, and rather grungy. But when the actual mechanism came out of the box, it'd been pristine, and only the gaggle of wires that were hanging out of the various pieces were any evidence that it wasn't complete right there.

The failsafe was set ridiculously high; if Paul mis-entered his password the first time, he'd have to wait for Quatre to come along, and enter his, and clear Paul's. And the deadbolts were nasty things that looked to be over-kill on the light door. But they _were_ keeping some rather sensitive materials in that room, so Paul could understand the measures perfectly.

Duo came breezing through the door, his face lit up with a broad grin. "Hey, Q-ball, you won't believe who sent you something…" He halted in front of the computer terminals after he'd skirted the large table and began to wave a data disc around in front of Quatre's nose.

"Who?"

"Oh-silent circus-freak, that's who!" He plunked the disc into Quatre's outstretched hand, chuckling at the delighted smile that Quatre was now displaying. The blond turned eagerly for the tower, sliding the disk home and pulling up the files on it as soon as he could.

Paul, expecting a vid-message, much like the communications you got from anyone on a disk anymore, was surprised when nothing came up on the screen. Instead, a rich, deep voice filled the air with liquid syllables that he couldn't understand, though, from the laughs that both young men gave, they _could._ In the midst of his laughter, Quatre pulled up a new window, over the ten already up, and began to set up an email. Paul was too far away to see what it said, but whatever it was, Duo found it even more amusing than the now-chuckling voice on the disc.

Paul just had to shrug, and continue on his way, slowly working his way through the papers, until he knew that he didn't really have to be there anymore. He was so close to exhaustion that the rhythmic sound of the foreign voice was luring him home to his own bed, and to sleep. To all appearances, Duo was sleeping in one of the computer chairs, arms crossed over his chest, legs stretched out and up on one of the desks, passed out cold. It was, however, belied by the chuckles that would occasionally crop up, a response to whatever they were both listening to.

He gave them a brief good-bye, and was out of the office, gone to his bed, only to be up the next morning, ready, if not willing, for the next round of paperwork, consultations with lawyers, various work foremen via vidphone...the average day he was coming to see.

He was rubbing his eyes one morning in front of the bank of elevators when Quatre appeared beside him, with no sign of Duo. Still too tired to startle at the sudden appearance, he did have a nearly over-whelming need to know where the braided youth was. This was the first time in two weeks he'd not been right there with Quatre.

"Where's Duo?" His eyes were having trouble focusing on anything yet. He had a thought about coffee, but it was more full of longing than the knowledge it was in his future.

Quatre grinned at him, unfazed by the early hour. "He's done here, really. I can handle whatever's left." He shrugged. "He was needed urgently at one of his other contracts."

"Other contracts?"

"Hm?" Quatre was almost staring off into space, a little distracted. "Oh, yeah." He smiled. "He was only consulting with us, and now he's done."

"Who else does he work with?"

"All sorts of places." The doors to the elevator on the far left opened, and they went for it. "I think he's back on Earth, but I'm not sure." He smiled again with a shrug, the heavy briefcase he was carrying making it a little sporadic. "Really, without an emergency, he comes and goes as he pleases. But that's Duo for you."

"Ah." Paul put it from his mind, just as he would some other trivial matter. There were too many pieces of the puzzle that was WEI for him to worry about anything else.

The more he worked in that building—the more he made progress, and together he and his boss made new avenues to eclipse the old, or, in some cases, pulled to light the many things that had changed and should not have, Paul was feeling almost proprietary over the company, and his place in it.

His month had come up—and he hadn't batted an eyelash when his contract had come through that day's paperwork from the lawyers firm. It'd been signed and not really thought about. By then, after only a week of being Quatre's assistant, he'd known he'd wanted to stay there. Right then, he knew it was the excitement. Later, it would be the perfect familiarity, the lack of questioning of his position.

So the grueling hours, the almost excessively fast pace—that was the now, and it would pave the way for the future, and nothing would feel as frenetic after the mad rush. Which was a thought he liked.

The mail was sitting on his desk when he got in, and it was the first thing that he went through in the morning. In with it was a package labeled simply QRW, and on the back it said, DO NOT OPEN—URGENT. Paul ran it through the scanner Duo had set up on his last visit through, (and Paul understood what Quatre had said about come and go as he pleased finally,) but the package came up clean. He put it in the pile that went straight to Quatre and forgot about it.

When Quatre got there, he was balancing his tea on one hand, had his briefcase in the other, and shoved the mail in his box under one arm, mumbling a greeting through what remained of his apple. He was back out not three minutes later, unopened package in his hands.

"When did this come in?"

Paul couldn't tell if he was excited or angry. "It was in the morning mail, so I'd assume yesterday. Doesn't it say on the postmark?"

His boss grinned. "There is none." He tilted the top to show Paul. No postage, no mark, no return address. All Paul could do was shrug helplessly as Quatre grinned at him, before the blond disappeared back into his office. Within moments, Paul could hear more of the voice that had become so familiar after Duo had brought in the disk issuing forth from the open door, this time in a different language.

As was usual, he'd turned the shade up on the windows, so only a little light came through, kinder on the eyes as he went through his endless pile of paperwork, and searched through both computer screens for the information he had to keep up with. Major deadlines, the larger shipments..._and_ day to day paperwork problems, answers to questions that those who, now, looked up to him for the answers they wanted. They fought hard for the offices on the top floor, and now they had to defend the position.

Quatre took it in stride. Whenever someone would come to him with some doubt in their head, or something they thought he couldn't solve, Quatre would learn to, in leaps and bounds. Paul had remarked on it, once, and Quatre had grinned at him, and said: "Do you know what the average intelligence is? Less than you think." And he dropped the subject, apparently deciding that that was enough to explain it. Paul didn't understand, really, but he didn't want to say anything, for fear of appearing part of that average to his boss.

That night, when he left, Quatre was still there, the voice in a foreign language still going, and the paperwork still disappearing as he went through it.

* * *

Duo would send occasional letters, though Paul knew that mostly he contacted Quatre via email, and such electronic sources. Once, he sent a packet wrapped up in orange bubble wrap, and when it was opened, there was a framed photograph, and a ticket to a circus. The photo was apparently of the members of the circus, maybe about ten members, and a few of the more interesting animals. One of the clowns had a hand on a lions head, and you couldn't see anything of his face but for a mask, where he was crouched down next to the larger animal.

* * *

Quatre stuck his head around the corner after he'd gotten out of one of his morning meetings, and told him to order lunch, whatever. Paul, now used to this routine, called one of the numerous take out services that populated the colony, and it was decided that burgers and fries were a good idea. It had taken Paul a while to get used to the idea that Quatre had no interest in the food he ordered. He'd tested it once, after his boss' complete refusal to pick something out, by giving him a deli sandwich with just about every sauce he could think of, from vinegar to barbeque on it, and Quatre had eaten the entire thing without a single comment. He really just didn't care, and would eat whatever Paul put down in front of him. Which, if Paul's memory served him right, was exactly what Duo had told him before. "He'll eat _anything_ you put in front of him, that guy has no taste buds left, so just make sure it's good for him, k?"

After testing it, he followed Duo's guidelines, mostly, only indulging in such things as burgers and fries when _he'd_ gotten sick of rabbit food and nutritious, high protein, high fiber meals, like fish with wild rice.

So over burgers and fries, they had their lunch meeting. They'd usually go over the day's work so far, what was to come, and then also the head-ups for the coming week, business things, but today, Quatre was silent on that front, and Paul had run out of things to do. All in all, it'd been a fairly quiet week, with things apparently settling down into the new hierarchies that Quatre had thrown into the mix.

"Did the results from that audit of the office on MO-IV come in?"

Paul looked up from the burger he was staring at. "Yeah. All clear, thank god."

Quatre looked up from his sandwich. "Are you Christian?" He looked a little puzzled.

"Mmm." Paul's mouth was full, so he swallowed before he really answered. "Yeah. I was raised that way, so I guess I am." He used his napkin. "What are you?"

His boss shook his head slightly, going back to his lunch. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Were you raised anything?" He'd thought that most people were raised with at least some idea of belief. And as far as Paul knew, there were all sorts of different religions through the Winner family.

But Quatre shook his head again, using his own napkin after his mouthful. "I was. But…I lost that way."

Now he was thoroughly confused, because, although Paul could certainly understand that there were different belief systems, he found it extremely difficult to imagine someone with a complete lack of faith in anything. "Do you mean you were once religious, in some way, but are not now?"

The man considered it for awhile, taking another few bites from his diminishing burger. When he did answer, it was after he'd pulled a long drink from his water, and he seemed to be answering with a serious deliberation. "Actually…you know, I can't even say I've ever truly believed in anything."

"How can you be so sure? I mean…even as a child, you didn't believe in _some_ higher power, whether it be a supreme being or a supreme force of some kind?"

He nodded. "Yes. Maybe I can think of a way to describe it for you, what I mean."

They sat in silence for a long time, finishing off their respective lunches, but not really pushing themselves to go back to work. They'd earned their respite from paperwork and boardroom politics, and for this one day, they meant to take a little of it with their lunch.

Quatre finally smiled, looking off into the false sky shown by the large windows. "Here's a way to look at it: say you have this wonderful painted masterpiece. Now, let's say that the textures are the things that are physical in the world. Next, you have the wonderful shapes and colors. That's, perhaps, what a higher being put there. So you can feel the physical, and see the intangible." He paused, taking another sip of his water.

"The artist wants to show this amazing piece of work to one of his dear friends, and so brings him to see it. But the man's friend, no matter how hard he looks at it, can only see the texture, and can't distinguish the colors from one another. He just _cannot_ see the different effects that the colors make on the world of the painting, which are quite profound to other people, just not to him." He gestured out the window. "Which isn't to say it's not a wonderful masterpiece to the painter's friend as well, it just means that he sees a different part of it than many other people would."

He turned to smile at Paul. "But that doesn't mean the color's not there. It just means that it doesn't matter to that man if it is or not. It won't affect him, because he sees it all in a different light, and so, doesn't need the colors to enjoy the painting."

Balling up the wrapper in one hand to shove it back into the Styrofoam container it'd been packed in, Quatre smiled at Paul again. "A life without religion isn't the end of the world, or even something that deprives a man from seeing all there is to see, really. It just means he has a different way of looking at things."

Paul shrugged. "I guess, but that doesn't make any sense to me."

The blond man smiled again. "Well, from the atheist's point of view, you can't see his colors."

They finished cleaning up the boardroom's table from lunch, throwing away the refuse, and wiping it down with some furniture polish wipes they'd started keeping in the butler's tray by the windows. As they finished, they went back to work, and Quatre became all business.

Paul remembered when Quatre had brought the first package of wipes in. They hadn't been

eating in the boardroom yet, but Quatre had decided that he wanted to. He'd said that he wanted to enjoy the view from the windows on that side of the building because he always saw the other side when he was working. He was often like that, doing something that was a little strange, because he wanted to do it, and he'd become bored, or just plain tired of the way whatever it was had always been done.

The more he worked with Quatre, the more Paul had seen what it meant to be working with someone who controlled this much wealth and power. If he needed something, he got it, either by sending out for it, or by getting it himself. He brooked no arguments or excuses, and that was the end of it. Watching him, Paul knew that he was probably the most organized person he'd ever met, and while that could have been a weakness, it wasn't. He could still be organized in the face of a crisis arising. He'd be the center of the storm, still, calm, but barking orders like an infamous general, and if those commands were followed…soon, there'd be no problems at all. Everything would resolve itself.

Also indicative of his mind, and capabilities: he never forgot something. Down to the whatever food it was that he mechanically ate, or the man who'd called with a wrong number three days ago, he'd always be able to jog someone's memory. When he conducted the numerous board meetings that had perforce been called recently, he'd be thorough to the point of pure boredom. But no one had yet had a question he hadn't already covered. Quickly, they were learning to pay more attention, because if you asked something such as that, it was earning vicious looks from other board members.

Those men, filled to the bursting with wealth, and all of its many accoutrements, had taught themselves to never take anything from anyone, in their brutal rise to the top. But they were now learning what it meant to be a step lower than what they were used to, once more. Quatre was taking no prisoners, and he was ruling over the petty thoughts of his board with a fist stronger than iron, or steel.

Paul, though, had yet to have any real problem with his job, or working for someone whom he knew to be ruthless when the time called for it. He'd pull the rug out from under one of his own sisters without a second thought if he knew they were doing something they shouldn't. It was an interesting parallel for Paul to see.


	3. Chapter Three

Glass Towers and Steel Bars Ch. III

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Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.  
_Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)_

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.  
_Mark Twain (1835-1910) _

Just as Paul and Quatre entered their suite of offices after lunch, the phone rang, and Paul, motioning Quatre out of the view area, answered it. There was a man that seemed vaguely familiar, with Asian features and black hair pulled tightly back. He spoke before Paul could give the spiel.

"Hello. Is this Quatre Winner's office?"

"It is. May I give a name?" It was amazing how the formality would slick the doors open. Quatre, though, didn't need to wait for a name, and moved forward into view of the camera even while Paul was speaking, though he did wait for Paul to finish before he himself spoke.

"Hi, Wu Fei. How are you?" Wu Fei. Wu Fei. Why did that sound so familiar? Paul just shook his head as he sat down to look over the mail in the basket, and Quatre leaned against the side of the desk, hands braced behind him.

"I'm fine. Sorry to call you at work, Quatre, but this is actually business."

Paul glanced up from his stack of mail to look at what he could see of the vid-screen. The man's eyes were dark and hard enough to hide his thoughts. He couldn't think of what company he was affiliated with, but the name was still very familiar.

There was a rustle of fabric as Quatre straightened up from where he was leaning against the desk. As he stood taller, he crossed his arms over his chest. "Business?"

The man shook his head. "Nothing quite that serious. But serious enough to require your immediate attention."

Paul couldn't see Quatre's face, but when he spoke, he seemed thoughtful.

"I see. Is eight hours soon enough?"

The man nodded. "Yes, that's soon enough. I'll see you then." The screen cut the image after a short nod, and it had flashed the Preventer's seal, sparking Paul's memory. Commander Wu Fei Chang.

Quatre sighed, dropped his arms, and turned to Paul. "Looks like we need to rearrange the schedule."

Paul pulled the book out of the drawer, flipping it open to the date, and rotating it around so Quatre could look at it. "Should I not ask questions?"

His boss glanced up, his finger poised over the date book. "Hardly. I've just been called to Earth on Preventer's business." He shrugged, looking back down at the book. "It'll probably happen again."

With eyebrows raised, Paul voiced a first question or two. "How long are you going to be gone? Oh! And what should I say?"

Quatre frowned down at the line he was looking at. "Three days, maybe four." He smiled then, and shrugged. "And as far as what to tell those who ask—and they will ask—just say I've been called away for the government. I'll be back ASAP. If they ask anything further, you don't have to say anything, because, after all, you don't really know." Another smile, this time with a flash of dark eyes. "Plausible deniability, and all that."

There was a short silence before Quatre came to a decision on how he wanted to rearrange the week. "I want this as clean as possible. Whatever you can't get rid of or move to within the next two weeks, figure out someone to meet with whoever it is. But I want you there in the meeting, and I want detailed minutes. And make sure that all parties realize that, whatever _is_ decided there, I still have last say." He grimaced again, this time into the air as he thought, and visualized the different things coming up. "The last thing I need is someone taking it upon themselves to set up something."

The smile he gave to Paul was somewhat rueful. "Looks like it's a test run to see if those delegations we set up are going to work.

"Also, I want that heads meeting moved to next Tuesday, the sixth," he turned the book back around to Paul, pointing. "Here, but make sure that whoever calls their offices tells them that I want updated figures."

Quickly, Paul pulled out a loose sheet of paper, the first thing he laid hands on, and started to scribble notes. Quatre watched and waited, and, when Paul looked up, had a funny look on his face as he stared at the piece of paper. Then he shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and went on.

"We'll move the board meeting from the first to the eighth." Now he was grim. "We'll be discussing the same issue, I'm sure." He paused, looking at the date book again. "Everson I want to meet with next Tuesday, okay?"

Paul nodded, and moved it, looking at the appointments left. He could move that, and that—but this one would have to be re-arranged with someone else. It could work.

Qautre, while he was fudging around with the schedule, had dialed a call in. The man who picked up said, "Master Quatre! What can I do for you?" It took a moment, but Paul finally got that first joke Duo had made.

"Could you get me Rashid, please?"

"Certainly, sir. Right away."

It only took a few seconds and the 'phone picked up off of hold, a giant of a man on the screen.

"Master Quatre?"

"Rashid. I need the shuttle ready to go, and could you have Auva pack my things? Enough for three days, I'm going to go see Commander Chang."

There was a sedate nod from the giant. "Very good, Master Quatre. The shuttle will be ready in thirty minutes. Would you like me to put a call into the 'port authorities to make them aware of the situation?"

Again he nodded, but this time, he brought a hand up to rub his face as well. "If you would that's perfect, Rashid. I'll see you at the docks in forty minutes."

"Forty minutes it is then, Master Quatre." There was a huge hand reached out to hit the disconnect, but it paused, "I assume that you will not need the pilot?" The blond head shook.

"No, he won't be necessary. Thank you, Rashid."

A nod, just before the screen went blank.

Quatre sighed, and shook his head turning back to Paul, a hand running absently through his hair, something Paul had never seen the young man do, despite the stressed situations they'd already been in. "Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about going, it _is_ very important, so whenever something like this comes up, it _will_ be my absolute _first_ priority." Well, Paul could understand priorities, and the responsibilities of those who held a tremendous amount of influence over the government and the economy. Still, he couldn't help but wonder. "Just try to keep things from blowing up, and I'll see you in three days, okay?"

Paul nodded, his mind just a little numb as he thought about the things needing to be done immediately. He pushed that to the side for the moment as Quatre picked up his coffee cup once more, and swallowed the entire contents, which Paul was sure were cold now, and grimaced. "Well. This is fun. I'm going to get out of here, okay? If you need anything desperately, call that emergency number, and talk to Rashid. He'll track me down for you." And with a nod, he went into his office, grabbed his briefcase, one of the bagels he'd brought in, and nearly ran out the door.

Rubbing his hand over his forehead where he just knew there was going to be a headache coming to soon, Paul got to work, and began to call everyone he needed. It was going to be a long week.

* * *

The fifteen or sixteen men that were gathered in the boardroom were grim, to say the least. Quatre stayed calm, and almost bored at the head of the table, still so young that the chair there dwarfed him, made as it was for his father. But there was no uncertainty that showed on his face, even if Paul had been next to Quatre the first time he'd sat down there, and seen him nearly cry.

After they'd gotten through the initial hellos, they got to the actual business of the matter, going over the things that would usually be gone over when they were in vid conference. This was the first time many of these men had met Quatre face to face because they were always where they were supposed to be, managing the on-colony, on-Earth, on-satellite offices and operations. These were all of WEI's true heads. Each were wealthy, (some enormously so,) pulled to the top by the mass of the corporation. But one was wealthy, and rotten.

Paul sat in the corner, just as he did for the board meetings, and took notes—not the minutes, they had a secretary, (one of the ones first hired by Quatre for the paper mess,) who was eminently competent do that—Paul took the notes that Quatre wanted him to take. He observed, took notes on reactions of whomever Quatre wanted him to, and, when he got up to serve them the coffee, water, tea, anything that they needed, he made note of it, exactly what they requested, and later, would put it into a database that same secretary had made. Quatre felt that the more he knew about those he was in contact with, the better for him to understand them, and their motivations. Paul had been slightly put back by this, until Quatre and Duo had made the discovery, which they'd later admitted to expecting, that someone was selling mining technology to the competitors.

In that arena, the company's biggest competitor wasn't another construction based company, but a mining company, the only one that had previously had rights to gundanium. Quatre, personally, now held all rights to gundanium, something that Paul assumed had to do with his involvement the previous week with the government, and the Preventers. But because of that loss to Winner, the company was trying to quickly recoup its losses on that front by supplying greater amounts of _other_ high-tensile strength alloys. Unfortunately for them, they'd been refining all their techniques on gundanium because of the wars. Someone within this competitor's company had therefore gotten creative, and created a high-priced mole.

His name was Alfred Ciderin, and he was Winner's main satellite manager. Duo, when he'd heard, had said some very choice things about the honor of a man who could turn around after being so far entrenched into a company, and he and Quatre had gone briefly into a tired exchange about changing allegiances, but although Paul noted it, he wasn't that interested in anything but how Quatre was going to choose to deal with it.

At that moment, he'd shrugged and said he'd think of something, retreating into his office, but leaving the door open enough for Paul to hear him on the phone to someone who sounded suspiciously like the man from the recordings that were still periodically arriving in interesting ways. Paul had asked a while ago about the voice, and his boss had smiled, and said, "A friend, much like Duo. You'll meet him eventually; he just has a busy schedule, much as we all do, so he keeps in touch as he can."

But a friend was something that Mr. Ciderin was certainly not. After the brooding he'd done in his office, Quatre had a plan, and had told Paul to arrange a meeting with all the regional heads, from space to Earth. Then, despite the necessary postponement, they'd gathered, and they were back in that boardroom, as Quatre let them go on about the business of the company, waiting for that opportune moment to kill the brown worm in his green apple.

It was after Ciderin was through presenting the new colony hopper to be used for the mine operations that Quatre took the moment for himself.

He seemed completely his self as he spoke up. "Ah, yes. And I assume that you have that internal thing under control now, Mr. Ciderin?" He looked concerned, innocent, and earnestly young.

Ciderin seemed confused, just as Paul knew he must be. "I'm sorry, Mr. Winner, but what internal 'thing'?" Listening carefully, and expecting it, Paul could hear the stress the man had put into the address.

Now it was Quatre's turn to look confused, and even more young. "Oh, I thought it was in the brief," and here, he flipped through the thick book of reports before him, which he hadn't yet opened. He didn't find anything, just as Paul knew he wouldn't, having set up the presentation himself, to Quatre's specifications.

What he did find was the strength of his will that he'd been hiding from the board. "Oh, yeah." He had a smile on his face that was not in any way nice. "I forgot." And Paul could tell that he wanted them to know that he had not forgotten anything. "I had it set up on the computer." Quatre nodded to Paul in his corner, and the assistant hit the button on the remote controller to light up the screen that covered the wall behind Quatre.

The first screen was a simple graph. It showed the increase in business for the three top mining companies for the past two years, the ones after the wars. Winner was doing a steady increase, punctuated with leaps in places…but the next one wasn't doing quite so well. Scheulers, an enormous umbrella, just as Winner was, had had the entire corner on the Gundanium profit…and it wasn't doing _quite_ as well as it had once been. The graph showed it, _and_ showed how, over the last few months, the declining ground hadn't been so declining. They were beginning to recoup the profits they had lost with the banning of Gundanium.

Quatre had swiveled his chair around to see the screen. From the rest of the room, nothing could be seen of him, except perhaps, if you looked under the table, his thin legs would stick out from the edge of the chair. When he turned back, he had that same smile on his face that somehow, despite all the angles, all the brightness in it, didn't equal _good._

"I believe the next one is the _reason_ they've done so very well over the past few months." He glanced down at the table, where the imbedded screen was, echoing the larger one. "Ah, yes. As is here, you can see they're new miner, and, if shown next to ours, they appear shockingly similar." Again, he looked up, and his face was now a mixture of complete seriousness, and a calm amusement. "After all…it only takes ten percent for a new patent.

"And…even _more_ interesting is that there were only three places that those plans could have leaked from…one, me, as I knew about the project, certainly. Two: the engineering department, but then, why change the item at all? Or…" And he looked at Ciderin. "Three. Department head." His eyes swept the entire board. "The timing worked well, as did the several incentives that were found."

Ciderin, to Paul, looked more shocked than anything, but that was only for the amount of time it took for his survival instinct to kick in, and he was as calm as a glacier. That was one thing that this panel had going for them, the fact that they weren't inherited to this position, they had to know what they were doing. Quatre wasn't finished, though.

He sat very straight in his father's chair, as Quatre continuously called it, and he was very calm as he addressed those men. "It ends here. If you have spiffs going somewhere, I'd back out very quickly, now."

Paul wondered if Quatre knew just how dangerous the men sitting there were, cornered. But he'd trust him to, because he'd been so very right so far.

"Let's get it all straight, right now. I have no patience left for anything but the best. If you're so busy selling things to other people…go to them, and I'll _find_ the best to do whatever needs doing. I don't need to be watching over everyone's shoulders, I need to be doing the things that need to be done. You have precious little time to be doing anything, and I have less." Again his eyes swept the room, even resting on Paul for a second, pulling him into it as well. "Understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmative answers coming from all around the room, and after it, Quatre nodded, and spoke again, "Good. Then let's break for lunch, and we'll come back in two hours." He pinned Ciderin down to his chair. "Mr. Ciderin. If you'll just stay a moment?"

The man nodded, apparently knowing nothing else to do in the face of Quatre's aplomb. The blond stayed seated as the room vacated in silence, many of the men leaving their things there. Paul stayed in his corner, and he didn't think that Ciderin was going anywhere.

Quatre waited until the door was closed again before he began. "You know, reason dictates that I fire you."

The man met his eyes. "Are you reasonable?"

The young man looked back at him, serious and thoughtful. "No. And since you seem to be happy dancing around in circles all day long, I'm going to be brief, and to the point. You do it again, and I will. And then I'll spend a lot of time thinking up lots of very satisfying ways to get revenge, and I'll talk myself out of them, and you'll be just one more free scoundrel in the world." He smiled. "But then, I'm thinking that you won't do anything like that again, because you're going to be so very paranoid about being watched, and you'll get so nervous, eventually you're going to retire, fairly early, and enjoy your mis-earned credits happily." He lost his smile. "Is that very clear, Mr. Ciderin?"

The man swallowed, and nodded. "Yes. Quite."

Quatre nodded. "Good. Then I'll see you when the meeting resumes."

Ciderin nodded again, and stood, taking a long drink of water from his glass before he left. When the door shut once more, Quatre sighed, and turned to Paul. "Oh, that was fun."

Paul chuckled, and nodded, making an _mmm_ sound.

The young Winner swiveled in his chair a few times, back and forth, looking up at Paul after a little while. "Would you be so kind as to call Duo for me, on his office phone?"

His assistant stood even as he nodded, and went to the large vid-screen, pulling up the number from the memory. It range twice, before it was picked up with a "Maxwell."

"Hey Duo, I have Quatre here for you."

"Ah, hello Paul. Go ahead, then, hope you're doing well, and all."

"It's me. I was wondering if you could do a favor for me, off the books." Paul could hear the smile in his voice without looking around at him. The dark screen gave nothing away for Duo.

There was a pause, and "Sure, whatever you need, you know that."

"Well, you know the Ciderin issue…"

There was a sound like Duo was clearing his throat, or making a confirmation noise, and he went, "Yeah?"

"Well, I seemed to have resolved it, for now, but I was thinking…" Here, Paul turned to look at his boss. "I was thinking…wouldn't it be a good reminder if he could be…a little more poor for a day?"

Duo had a good laugh over that, and Paul raised eyebrows to Quatre, where he was waiting for Duo's voice to come back. "Sure, man. It would be a pleasure, so consider it done. I think I'm going to enlist help, though."

Quatre smiled, and shrugged. "Just so long as it's completely temporary, and has no lasting effects. A computer glitch, that's all."

"Okay, man. I'm going to go get started, I didn't have anything really interesting going on anyway, and it was good to talk around you, Paul, see you at some point, I'm sure, guys."

After the screen disconnected, Paul raised his eyebrows at Quatre again, but the man just shrugged, with an innocent expression plastered all over his face. "Hey, I said temporary." Then they looked at each other, and started to chuckle.

* * *

The door swung open, startling Paul as he was sorting through the morning mail. When he looked up, there was a man standing there that looked slightly familiar, though he couldn't really place where he'd seen him before. He had reddish brown hair, green eyes, was very tall, and fairly thin, even if you couldn't really tell under his bulky turtleneck.

He spoke before Paul could, asking, "Is he in yet?"

Paul frowned. "Mr. Winner?"

The man nodded. "Yeah. If he is, could you tell him Trowa's here?"

Caught off guard, all Paul could think of was to nod, and touch the intercom. "Quatre?"

Quatre's voice came back over the line. "Yes, Paul? It's not my first, is it?"

"No…You have a Trowa here to see you." There was no reply to that, but a moment later, the door to the office was yanked open, revealing an excited boss.

"Trowa!" He didn't run, but he still came forward to hug the man, who, with a smile, hugged him back. "You're a week early!"

Trowa nodded. "Yeah. Our last city was cancelled—apparently they were facing an epidemic of some kind, and it wasn't safe for the animals." He shrugged. "So I caught a ride up a little earlier than expected."

Quatre grinned. "Well, I'm glad!" He turned to Paul, now. "Paul, this is Trowa Barton. He's an old friend, and he's going to be staying with me during the off season, so he'll probably be around a bit."

Trowa nodded to him, but didn't smile.

"Off season?"

Quatre answered. "Yeah. He owns the Bloom circus, and does a lot of their main acts."

Recognition sparked, and Paul remembered him from the photograph that Duo had sent. He'd been the one kneeling next to the lion. "Oh, okay."

The man, however, raised an eyebrow at Quatre, before turning to Paul. "Half of it. I own one half of it, my sister the other." He smiled slightly. "Don't let the owner of all he surveys try to convince you that anyone _else_ owns all of everything."

Shaking his head, Quatre motioned to the office, and after Trowa passed him, pushed him in the back. "Paul, just ring me when the L1 VP gets in, would you?"

Paul nodded, and watched as the door to the office shut once more. "Huh."

There was enough busy work to keep him occupied until the L1 VP arrived, so he spent the time doing that, and directing his attention to the questions of his boss, and thinking about the latest news he'd had from his family.

He'd been far enough away, and for a sufficient amount of time, for him to think about maybe taking a break, and visiting them. They'd like that, and it would ease his homesickness. And perhaps, if he worded it right, he could convince Quatre to take a vacation at the same time. It'd be good for him, and if it were soon enough, he could do it while his friend was here. He quickly reconsidered that, though. Maybe a partial break, working from his estate, or something. He was too new to the hot seat for a real break away from it, but he could maybe do something to catch his breath. Yeah. He liked that idea, both for himself, because, after the near year he'd been there, he needed it, and for his boss, because, although the man didn't show it, Paul figured he'd be grateful for even a step away.

* * *

The idea was liked immediately, and embraced wholeheartedly. The actual possibility of it, however, seemed a little shady, until Trowa, into work the next day to catch up with Quatre, said that, if you were to look at it as a small hypothetical situation, it was optimal for seeing the development of the internal systems they'd built from scratch. He also pointed out that, if Quatre were still in touch, there would be a relatively small chance of failure on the parts of the people under them.

The ultimate law-layer had stared at Trowa for a moment or two, and said, "Done." Then he'd swung around to Paul, and said, "We'll give it a month to prepare, how's that sound? We give advance notice of it all, except that it's to see if they can handle a little amount of time." He started to chew on his lip again as he stared into space, thinking. "But I'm only going to give some slack to a few of the higher ups…if this is a training exercise, I'm going to do it right."

Over the next several weeks, he became very used to Trowa popping into the office to drag his boss off to lunch, or even when he thought he was staying at the office too late, drag him out of the building. Usually, that would be accomplished only after a long discussion, though never an argument, of why each thought what he was suggesting was a better thing. Trowa, it seemed, had an infinite amount of patience with everything but excuses, and wouldn't let Quatre make any to stay. He'd just stare at Quatre as the man attempted to grasp onto exactly why he needed to get something done right then, and, when the excuse was finished, say: "I take it it'll grow wings in the middle of the night, and won't be right there in the morning?" Or something equally ridiculous, but valid. If that didn't work, it would be a long staring contest, and that usually worked. If it didn't…well, Trowa would stay there until Quatre went home. Whatever the outcome, it was always interesting to see.

As those that looked directly to them for answers buckled down for the week and a half that they were going to be gone, the more they looked forward to it, because there seemed to be a thousand reasons and a hundred people who would be quite happy if they didn't leave. Determined as Quatre was, though, there was nothing short of rack and ruin that was going to stop him, and he made sure that those in charge knew the procedures they needed to, so that the company would keep running smoothly.

many thanks to Crazy and Miyabi for help and betas


	4. Chapter Four

Glass Towers and Steel Bars Ch. IV

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.  
_Charlie McCarthy_

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.  
_Mark Twain (1835-1910)_

I will not add another word.  
_Horace (65BCE – 8BCE)_

Paul remembered it as being much longer than it really was, but he knew it wasn't. It seemed to him to be a gradual thing, this melding of Trowa to Quatre. But the way it really was, one day, Paul had met him, and nearly the next, plus or minus a month or so, Trowa was spending the days in Quatre's office, reading books on zoology, animal training, and cybernetic engineering. Apparently—and he was quite happy to tell Paul about it—he was interested in the field that would allow the biometric fusion of prosthetic limbs to amputees. For animals. He seemed to think that there were possibilities for the furtherance of this field using some of the technologies used in mobile suits.

It blew way over Paul's head, so he paid more attention to the relationship he could see between the two. After he'd come back from the circus that second time, it had been clear he was staying with Quatre permanently, and they'd begun to plan for an expansion onto Quatre's estate house. Trowa wanted to take in older lions and other great cats from the various circuses and let them live out their lives, but he also wanted to raise and train new ones.

Leaning up against the wall in the office, waiting for Quatre to finish his early day so they could supervise the construction for the evening, he'd explained it to Paul. "I've worked with the animals a lot in the circus, but I've never actually been the main trainer or raised them, and I want to."

He'd shrugged. "I've always had other things that needed to be done more, so I had to split my attention."

"I can understand that," Paul replied, nodding. "How's the work going?"

Trowa had looked at him in surprise. "You haven't been up to see it yet?"

Paul shook his head. "No, I've not been to the estate since before the renovations started, but I've heard that the plan is very ingenious."

The taller man laughed, and bowed to the blond who had just then appeared in the office doorway. "That would be all his fault."

Quatre came forward chuckling, to stand fairly close to Trowa. "Hardly mine in the entirety. Surely I can lay some blame on Jones and his group of excellent architects?"

Trowa smiled a little, replying with something in another language.

Quatre shook his head at him, "If you start that, I'll have you read aloud during the day, and remind myself of the tapes."

Paul, without thinking, muttered, "And then nothing will get done," and, when he'd realized he'd said it, stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at the astonished men before him.

They didn't leave him in very much suspense, but soon had broad smiles on their faces, and Trowa said, "And Paul wins," sketching a very courtly bow, sweeping off an imaginary hat, executing it with such exact precision that Paul gave a whistle.

"I'd bet you were amazing in the circus."

Quatre gathered up his laptop case and motioned down the hall to the executive elevators, saying over his shoulder, "Or on any stage, in any costume," getting in the last office banter of the evening.

* * *

It was dreary and cold outside, which is why Paul wasn't surprised to see Quatre come in with a wool overcoat on, his hair wet and sticking to his head from the rain.

Now a standard, he had breakfast stuck in his mouth, (something from the cafe downstairs,) and had one hand filled with his briefcase using the other to get through doors. He waved a 'morning to Paul and breezed through the outer office, heading for his own, and getting ready for the day's appointments. He hadn't been spending as much time at the office, and so had finally, (much to Paul's relief, who, seeing the man the most, was thinking it was _definitely_ time,) begun to delegate a lot of the unnecessary things he'd done from the start due to the lack of understanding and skilled people to delegate to. But that meant he spent more time checking up on people than anything else, which meant lots and lots of meetings, and with some departments, that would be a daily thing, even if they were on Earth, and it had to be linked through satellites.

So his mornings were spent getting questions ready as he waited for his first appointment, and Paul was startled when the routine deviated suddenly, the deviation one Quatre sticking his head around the corner of the door.

"Paul, could you find me a company shirt, or something?"

His assistant looked at him in confusion. "Why, what happened?"

Quatre chuckled, and opened the door completely, showcasing his rather hideous shirt. "Well, it looks like the closet my coat was in was missed when they cleared everything out for the renovations." His shirt was completely covered in streaks of the pinkish-red clay that the colony's base ground was made of. But mostly, the shirt was pink, from the smaller particles sinking into the material when water was applied.

Paul couldn't help it, and he just broke down with laughter, seeing for the first time, the immaculate man so very un-immaculate. His boss just stood in the door for a few seconds, eyebrows raised and head shaking before he went over to the vid-screen. He hit the speed dial for the estate, and Trowa answered.

Quatre smiled. "The cats haven't gotten there yet?"

Trowa shook his head with a small smile. "No. Apparently, there was a miscommunication about it—there are two cubs with them, and they're having some trouble with the transports from the 'port."

The blond nodded, just as Paul got over his amusement. "Well, when they get in, could you come down with a shirt for me? As you can see, I've had a mishap."

"Hm. Sure, but it'll probably be around lunch before they get here." Paul was doing a very good job of keeping himself occupied as he went through the morning mail. No more big surprises there anymore.

"Then I'll see you at lunch, Trowa."

Paul glanced up just in time to see Trowa nod and the connection cut out. His boss then turned to him with a slight smile. "So, any luck on a shirt until then? This _is_ rather uncomfortable." He tried to pick the shirt away from his body, but failed as it made a sucking sound, and some of the larger clay spots began to crumble into dust as the water evaporated them. He gave up with a rather displeased expression.

Needless to say, one of the company polo shirts was found post haste.

Just as Paul was dialing the vidphone for lunch, Trowa walked in, hanging shirt over his shoulder. He shook his head at Paul, and said, "We're going to go out, I heard about this really great restaurant in the new quarter," so Paul shrugged and hit the clear button.

Trowa went on into the office with the rescue-shirt, and they both emerged not too much later, ready to eat.

There was a car for them outside the lobby, and they made their way to this new restaurant, which was a blend of traditional Middle Eastern with an old world French influence.

As they were settling down with their menus, Paul looked up at Trowa. "So, do I get to come see some of the cats soon?"

He was somewhat startled, but nodded at Paul as he closed his menu and set it aside. "Whenever you want." He shrugged. "They're not going anywhere at the moment."

Quatre was scanning the menu, taking longer than the other two, when he stopped, and looked up at Trowa, frowning. He stayed that way for a moment, and then spoke. "You know...Trowa, why don't you bring one into the office for a little while?"

Trowa raised eyebrows back at him. "You want me to bring a lion into the office?"

With a laugh, Quatre shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I meant one of the cubs." He snorted. "But one of the adults _would_ be interesting. Maybe it could eat accounting..." He stared off as if dreamy over the suggestion, making the other two laugh. Right then, that was the department giving the most headaches to everyone. "But I don't think it would help anything at this point." He grimaced. "We're too deep in accountants."

There was some mirth over that, but they quickly subsided when their server appeared, leaving it off as not as important as the ordering of actual hot food on the dreary day.

They spent most of lunch talking about the situation the accountants had unearthed, with Quatre and Paul being the main participants, though Trowa would occasionally insert a shrewd comment that would get them over whatever small bump in the road had currently stumbled them.

At the end of the meal they returned to the office, and Paul was certain that others were as full as he was. Trowa stayed in the car to return back to the estate, sure to double and triple check on the new cats to the exclusion of everything else for the rest of the day. The last few words were a promise to bring a kitten in the next day.

But as the day waned onto evening, there was a lack of excitement about the office. It seemed, that, aside from their small issue with accounting, there were no more dragons to slay for the day, and, for once, they had a quiet, uneventful day at the office.

* * *

When Paul woke up the next morning, he decided that there would be no more Mediterranean food for him in the future—at least, not in such a large dose. He felt like hell. His stomach agreed with the sentiment, and began to clench and unclench, increasing the misery that Paul felt as a whole.

He tried to go about his normal morning routine, but he could barely stand, and it just got worse the more he was up and about. He was going to have to call in.

For some reason, seeing as he had yet to call in sick even once, and only took a personal day when Quatre made him, he didn't think that there would be a problem. Nonetheless, he hated having to, and perhaps that showed on his face when he called into the office after he knew his boss would be there. Quatre, when he picked up the phone, raised his eyebrows at the screen.

"You don't look very good, Paul. Feeling under the weather?"

Paul chuckled weakly. "I think it's more along the lines of food poisoning, or something."

Quatre nodded. "Then don't come in if you're feeling bad." He shrugged. "I'm sure that I'll be able to manage for a day or two without you." He smiled, though. "But barely."

Again, Paul gave a weak agreement of amusement. "Yeah. I'll probably see you tomorrow."

His boss nodded. "Okay. We'll put off showing you a kitten until then."

Feeling a wave of nausea and pain, Paul closed his eyes, swallowed, and nodded slowly. "See you later, then."

Quatre smiled at him. "Get some rest, it might make you feel better."

The screen went black, and Paul turned away from it, only to see the kitchen, making him feel more nauseous. Quickly, he looked away, and his eyes fell to his calendar, where he'd circled the date. His show was running another marathon today. He'd forgotten, but he'd circled the day to remember to watch some of it when he got home. He snorted a little. Looks like he was going to be watching it after all. He just didn't think he'd be able to enjoy it as much today as he might have otherwise.


End file.
